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The City Council publishes its agenda three business days in advance of a Council meeting, and posts that agenda to this website.

The item on the Agenda is under "bills introduced". This is a summary. The full draft text is below. The summary says:

02-0713 Weapons - Paintball Guns

Sponsors: Holton.

ORDINANCE - FOR the purpose of prohibiting the possession, sale or transfer, or discharge of paintball guns and similar devices; defining certain terms; imposing certain penalties; correcting, clarifying, and conforming certain related provisions governing gas- and air-pellet devices; and generally relating to guns and other devices that discharge pellets and other objects. - PUBLIC SAFETY SUBCOMMITTEE (020500)

As of March 7, 2002, this is what it says, according to a fax from the City Council. Call the City Council to get a copy fax'd directly to you. Anything in brackets [] is current wording that would be replaced.

Section 1. Be It Ordained by the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, That the Laws of Baltimore City read as follows:

Baltimore City Code

Article 19. Police Ordinances

Subtitle 59. Weapons

Section 59-26. Gas- or air-pellet guns.

(A) Definitions.

(1)

In this section, the following terms have the meanings indicated.

(2) "Gas- or Air-Pellet gun".

"Gas- or Air-Pellet gun" means any gun or other device, by whatever name or description known, that discharges a pellet or other object by force of gas or air cylinder or cartridge.

[It shall be unlawful for any persons, firm or corporation to] No Person may sell, give away, [lend, rent,] or otherwise transfer a Gas- or Air-Pellet gun to, or permit the use of a Gas- or Air-pellet gun by, any individual whom [any such] that person [, firm, or corporation] knows or has reasonable cause to believe [to be] a minor [, under the age of 21 years, any gun or other device, by whatever name or description known, which discharges a pellet or other object by force of gas or air cylinder or cartridge].

(C) [(b)]: Discharge or use [prohibited].

[It shall be unlawful for any] No person [to] may discharge or use any [gun or other device, by whatever name or description known, which discharges a pellet or other object by force of a gas or air cartridge or cylinder,] gas- or air-pellet gun unless the [said] gun [shall be] is kept within his or her own domicile or [shall be] is used by him exclusively for the purpose of teaching the use and care of [weapons or] firearms at [an] a properly constructed indoor or outdoor range [which shall be under the supervision, guidance, and instruction of an adult].

[(c) Same.

It shall be unlawful for any person to discharge any such gun or device from or across any street, sidewalk, alley, or public road within the limits of the City of Baltimore except on a properly constructed target range or except on private grounds or residence under circumstances where the said gun or device can be fired, discharged, or operated in such a manner as not to endanger persons or property and also in such a manner as to prevent the projectile from traversing any grounds or space outside the limits of such grounds or residence.]

(d) Penalties.

Any [violation of the provisions] person who violates any provision of this section [shall be deemed to be] is guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction, is subject [upon conviction] to a fine of not more than $500 or to imprisonment for not [longer] more than 60 days or to both fine and imprisonment [, in the discretion of the Court] for each offense.

Section 59-26.1. Paintball Guns

(A) Definitions

(1) In General

In this section, the following terms have the meanings indicated.

(2) "Paintball Gun".

"Paintball Gun" means any gun or other device, including a gas- or air-pellet gun as defined in Section 59-26 of this subtitle, that is used or designed or intended to be used to discharge a paintball or other object designed or intended to mark a target with pigmentation.

Any person who violates any provision of this section is guilty of a misdemeanor and, on conviction, is subject to a fine or not more than $500 or to imprisonment for not more than 60 days or to both fine and imprisonment for each offense.

Section 2. And Be it Further Ordained, That the catchlines contained in this Ordinance are not law and may not be considered to have been enacted as a part of this or any prior Ordinance.

Section 3. And Be It Further Ordained, That this Ordinance takes effect on the 30th day after the date it is enacted.

The City Council meeting of Monday, March 11, begins at 5 p.m. at City Hall.

The web site indicates: Full texts of City Council bills are not available online as of yet. If you require the full text of a bill, please call the Council's Executive Secretary during business hours at (410) 396-1697. Requests will be filled via facsimile or U.S. Mail as appropriate.

CONTACTS

IF YOU WISH TO CONTACT ANY CITY OFFICIAL, IT IS ABSOLUTELY VITAL THAT YOUR CONTACT BE VERY POLITE.

STATING YOUR OPINION IS CERTAINLY APPROPRIATE, BUT DOING SO IN A WAY THAT IS CONSIDERED RUDE WILL HURT PAINTBALL'S CAUSE, NOT HELP IT.

City of Baltimore
City Council
City Hall, Room 408
100 North Holliday Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21202
City Switchboard (all departments) 410-396-3100

If they ever tried this in MA i would fight them tooth and nail.....till the bitter end. Thats it they need to make a law AGAINST bannin paintball guns.. Im SICK of this.. Uninformed people making uninformed decisions.

"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." -John Morley

In case anyone was too lazy to read the whole email please remember to keep you opinions civil. It will look very bad on us if everone is telling them how stupid they are to ban paintball guns. Try to find facts such as injuries per person or annual revenue from paintball to add into your comments. This will show the council we are educated and the positive sides of the sport.

Baltimore people!

I suggest we rally efforts to fill their emails with legitimate points. Those who are local or close, I would suggest calling and attempting to speak to the representatives in person. If you can, see what you can do about attending the meeting itself. Have the local business owners contact the council, and not just paintball distributers, but sports shop owners, the people you buy your clothes from to paintball in, the people who fill your shop owners' fill stations, the realtors who lease the land to the paintball field owner, the insurance agencies that insure paintball parks. Have them all contact the city council. The business owners are the key. Money talks.
My email to council members:

Council members of Baltimore:
I am a paintball player. Currently I reside in Washington, though I maintain my status of voting resident in Arizona. I have played paintball all over the United States. Recently it was brought to my attention that you are considering a bill to ban paintball in your city. This bill distrubs me greatly.
Paintball is a sport. It has been shown that it is one of the safest sports that people can engage in today, safer than tennis and even golf. Paintball can be played by all ages of people. I have seen children six years old playing, and I have seen grown men nearing fifty years old playing. Men and women both play, and they play together on equal terms. Paintball encourages teamwork, builds responsibility, and promotes exercise. Its benefits are numerous, and I have not listed them all by far. It seems that all I ever hear about is the negatives, though. A majority of the time, these negatives are based on misunderstanding, and lack of knowledge. Occassionally, they are based on fact, and improper usage of the equipment that is part of a the sport of paintball.
Many people who have not participated in a game of paintball have litter understanding regarding it. They view it as some sort of war game, most of the time. This view is incorrect. Paintball is an elaborate form of tag, but tag where instead of one person being 'it', it is one team versus the other. Rules and safety equipment ensure that nobody is injured, both the people playing and the people observing. These rules are enforced by both the field officials, and the players themselves. The level of enforcement is so strict that paintball has become known to have that level of safety greater than that of so many other sports.
Yet, this lack of experience and understanding is very prevelant in the community today. It seems that the topic I hear more and more often is that of regulating and banning paintball, and every time I hear it it is spoken from the point of someone who has little understanding of what paintball is. This lack of understanding, by people who are in the position to create and enforce laws, can cause the sport of paintball, the people who play, and many others, to suffer. This suffering would would encompass those able to compete in their sport. It would be all of the sports stores and paintball stores in the baltimore city limits. This would also affect those companies that own the equipment used to fill nitrogen tanks and co2 tanks, and to hydrotest the tanks that the paintball player uses. It would be the employees of these companies, and their families. Banning paintball guns would mean that people would have to get rid of thousands of dollars, in some cases, of gear. And they would not be able to sell this in their area. Most people who possess these items would have almost no means of getting rid of this gear. Is the city council going to buy every single gun? Are they going to provide a means of getting rid of these? What will they do when they realize that the people who follow their regulations are the ones that use paintballs correctly, and the people who don't follow their regulations are those that will keep their now outlawed 'weapons' and use them for the same purposes that gave paintball a bad repuation in the first place. What will they do about the people that buy over the internet and have paintball equipment shipped to them, thus bypassing their law enforced shutdown of local business? Are the shipping authorities to screen every package that crosses the boundary of the city limits? Your law will just increase the problems you seem to be having with misuse of paintball equipment. You will eliminate your ally in policing their use: you will eliminate the paintball player. You will be left with two types of people: those that use paintball markers wrongly for illegal means, and those that decide to keep their equipment so they can take it to places where they can use it legally. The first type are the very small minority that you already have a problem with. The second type will be a small fraction of what is right now the majority of a very large group. This second group will most likely become dis-illusioned with helping to police the use of paintball. Evidently, the help they already offer is spurned. Evidently, you do not care for them, so why should they care to help you? Do not make the mistake of losing the support and help you already have.
Paintball markers can be used wrongly, as can baseball bats, and hockey pucks. The solution is not to remove the arm to treat the infected fingernail. The solution is to sterilize the fingernail. Deal with people that abuse the equipment. The paintball community already has a harsh view of those that use their equipment in ways it should not be used. In other words, YOU already have our enthusiastic support in your efforts to deal with any problem that stems from misuse of our sport. Why not attempt to use this support you have, instead of turning it against you?
It is my sincere hope that you listen to the content of my words, and that you understand my position in this matter. Though I am not a voter in your district, or even your state, and your laws would not affect me, they would affect my fellow paintballers. Paintball is a team sport, and a community of teammates besides. I can go to any part of the country, and find people who are friendly, and welcoming. I ask that you do not destroy the good of paintball in your city, for the sake of attempting to remove the evil.

"If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns" that meaning the people who give reason to outlaw something are doing somthing illegal to begin with. What makes you think that a piece of paper that says "you cant have those" will make them stop?

My father says that all the time. its the same as "Locks only keep honest people honest"... if you are willin to give enough time money and resources, anything can be done

Dude, you realize you live in the liberal haven of America? You're next.

Gun control = paintball control. You allow gun control to pass, you are opening the door for anti-paintball legisation to pass. Plain and simple. The "government" of Assachusetts has deemed that "citizens" cannot protect themselves with firearms. The Citizen of the Year is not allowed to carry a gun because of a misdemeanor that he commited in his youth. Real common sense in these legislator's heads, no? If you are writing your legislators to not ban paintball, it's already too late. Get out of there. Move to one of the few remaining "free states" that still recognizes our Constitution.

Getting the NRA involved will hurt more than help. First the NRA has no interest in paintball. Paintball markers will not help defend us from criminals/foreign invaders/government tyrany (not that the NRA is doing anything about current governmant tyrany). Paintball markers are not useful weapons and thus not valuable to the NRA.

Secondly, having the NRA support paintball would only reinforce the idea that paintball markers are guns. The NRA's support could help keep paintball markers legal but not keep the sport legal. The NRA wants us to be able to own guns but they do not encourage us to use them on each other.

The people trying to ban paintball are not the liberals as a group. They are a small minority of grossly missinformed people. If the NRA were to take up the cause of paintball the majority of the pro-gun lobby would not flock to our aid but we would loose anyt support we have now in the liberal quarter.

Aye.

We don't want the NRA involved. Although I didn't do a headcount, since Baltimore is a city and urban, most people on the city council are likely to be democratic. The NRA showing up will just hurt the cause.

I've started a new non-profit organization to deal with things like this. It is meant o grow into a consumers group, similar to the Air Travelers Association, or one of the numerous sporting associations that also influence legislation. (Snow mobilers have them, off roaders have them, we should have one too.) It's a little rushed since I hadn't planned on doing it until this summer, but with this law it seemed prudent to get tbe ball rolling earlier. Please swing by www.paintball-players.org. I'll keep everyone up to date on this (and other pending legislation) there, and it should allow everyone who is interested to coordinate in a central location instead of on 20 different web forums.

Originally posted by thei3ug NRA isn't just about guns, folks. And saying "don't involve the NRA is refusing a LOT of lobby power.

That being said... unenforceable.

Ditto. The "gun-lobby" is growing in power nowadays. If you refuse their support, who are you going to get it from other than the small amount of pro-paintball groups? HCI? I'm sure they would be glad to support a game where we run around shooting each other with GUNS.

Nothing stops anti-paintball legislation faster than when there is a rifle backing up paintball. Paintballers-7 million, Gun owners-70 million. You do the math.

Sorry, you guys are wrong.

I wish you had been to some of the hearings on paintball related laws recently. It is *NOT* a gun issue. These laws arn't being written by people who think of paintball markers as guns. These laws are being written from a safety issue - the legislators want to make sure paintball markers arn't used inappropriately, and sometimes they go overboard because they don't have the information necessary to draft legislation that's appropriate.

Trying to get a safety law changed by arguing that people have a right to bear arms won't work because you're just simply not adressing the issues at hand.

Paintball markers are SPORTING GOOD EQUIPMENT. Calling in the NRA to fight paintball legislation makes about as much sense as calling them in for ATV or snow mobiling legislation.

It is VERY EASY to approach legislators and say "Yes, we understand that you want to make sure paintball equipment is used responsibly. How about you write your legislation this way to accomplish that without unduely burdening paintball participants?" And that works. (It worked very well in WI.)

You need to understand that even if the NRA were to become involved, they'd involve us as a part of their greater legislative agenda. Paintball may not necessarily always benefit as part of another organization's agenda. We need to approach paintball legislation as paintball consumers, not gun owners, because the legislation is about paintball, not guns.

I've never heard it said or implied that the National Rifle Association does not approve of paintball. I'm a life member and frequently read their publications. I don't believe that they have a problem with it - they just aren't focusing on it because they've got to remain dedicated to firearms safety and education - that's enough of a challenge. However, I believe that paintball players need to hire lobbyists and build membership groups similar to the way the NRA does. Wouldn't you pay forty or fifty dollars a year to see that your freedoms aren't taken away by liberal knit-wits? Paintball is going to need some advocacy groups and soon if it is going to survive for the long haul. The ball needs to get rolling by manufacturers and needs to be supported financially by educating players of this need. Right now paintball manufacturers are trying so desperately to gain market share in this industry, they have no vision for the future of the sport other than what the next latest and greatest marker is gonna be.

Guys,
We need to read what reahl is writing. I have to agree with that and other peoples postings here.
The NRA is trying to protect a constitutional principal/right.
We however are trying to preserve our option/ability to play a sport.
While we or anyone else can find rather distant parallels, that is all they are, minor simularities.
The NRA's fights and concerns will be eternal. Where as our struggles are due to education of players and civic leaders and proper use by consumers.
Everyone, I can not stress this enough. If you see or even hear of someone doing stupid things with markers do something to stop it. These are the people who are in the end ruining the future of paintball. Allways promote responsability with the newbies and players you meet. Lots of things seem harmless at the time.
What really needs to be done is to understand what the concerns are of the citizenry (or person) that started the legislation in Baltimore. Then work needs to be done to address those concerns to ultimately avoid any legislation. Or at the very least have reasonable legislation.

I choose to use the term marker. Just like I choose to use a baseball bat to play baseball. They are the tools of a sport. While both can be used to protect my home, I would choose neither to protect my country.
Paintball is a sport.

I beg to differ regarding the NRA. I suppose it is a regional variances within the organization. It so happens about two years ago. In Shelton CT. The state office of the NRA was very effective in stopping a local ordinance from being established. As I recall, their arguement had really nothing to do with the popularity of the sport or anything along the sport itself. This was a purely legal debate. The ordinances do fall into their area as broad legislation affects BB guns and any air powered gun.
I would recommend finding someone from the state office to help. I'll do a deja news search to finf the discussion. The owners of the local PB store in Shelton CT put a strong effort. Also, the appearance of local news (even a single small newspaper) is effective. As many locals --parents, vendors and kids should show up at the hearings. Find out the hearing date. These were all very effective measures.

I hope you all understand that paintball would have NEVER of taken off if it weren't for the NRA--I'm not saying that the NRA had anything directly related to do with it, but with firearms banned (which definatly would happen if it weren't for the NRA) how far do you think a game where you simulated "killing" people with guns would have gone?

Rifleman - regardless of the the existence of the NRA or not there has never been any legislation to ban gun ownership in America. Ever. And to say that it is due to the existence of the NRA is a base assumption at best. I agree with you that the NRA is an important lobby group for the gun community but I think that paintball, in its current infancy, wuold not benefit from the attention of such a "sin industry" group. It would definately cast a negative light upon us.

As for this bill there is one bit of information that is very interesting. It doesn't say that paintball is banned just the bill was introduced.

Actually, I just got off the phone with the City Council Secretary ( a VERY nice and friendly woman) who informed me of the bills current status.

The bill was merely announced last night and was assigned to a committee for review. The next step is to announce a hearing on the topic, the date of which should be published on their site later today.

For some reason when I clicked on the Legislative Activity (la.htm) link it didn't work for me but just entering the URL up to the .com worked fine.

I would recommend that people do not contact the council members lambasting them for banning paintball as it is not currently banned and will only make us look like a bunch of dorks.

Since Balitimore is relatively close to me I'm going to watch this closely and will try to get out there for any hearings that I can to make sure that my voice is heard in this matter.

I would also like to formally extend an invitation to Tom to join us if he so chooses. I'll be contacting other industry heads during the remainder of this week to see if we can also get their voices involved.

Third, I am about to send a letter to the writer of that article, letting him know that his was a severe case of terrible reporting. I just think that they could of gone a bit farther to let people know that this is just legislation being introduced and not yet passed into law.

My final next step is to contact just the originators of this bill and open a dialogue with them as to their impetus for this bill and to see if there is not some way around the total ban of these items.

Wish me luck.

Return to the free market. Get rid of all government regulations and let society make it's own decisions. Time and again the relaxing of government regulations has increased profits, innovation and the economy.

i dont care if they ban paintball everywhere, i will never stop playing. i wont give up my gear, and as long as i can find paint somewhere (dont care if i have to drive to Canada) then im gonna keep goin. useless goverment, its become to big, to cluttered, and to useless for the people....this country needs a good old revolution (hope when it happens i will be young enough to help storm the white house...)

Last edited by hardr0ck68; 03-12-2002 at 09:33 AM.

Tom was the last of a now extinct breed, a breed of players who build a community, a breed of owners who gave to the sport never taking more than what they deserved. I hope to see you at the feild again some day....